Good & Human
by Black Jack and Coca Cola
Summary: Connor's back in Boston with Murphy and Romeo. Ready to face the Yakavetta family and the memory of the girl he loved and killed eight years ago. But not before reliving their history, and not before he's reminded of what they unintentionally showed each other. Remaster of 'The Ghost In You' ConnorxOC, Connor POV. Rated M for mature themes.


Good & Human

Chapter One: This Line of Work

**A/N: Boondock Saints is not mine. It belongs to Troy Duffy and whichever movie studio du jour is gonna produce III. **

**Now that the disclaimer's out of the way…**

**This story is basically a complete remaster of my original story **_**The Ghost in You. **_**I hated it and to be honest, it sucked; I don't know what stroke of insanity made me think it was good and to put it up on fanfiction .net , I re-read that story with great shame. Hence, why this "remaster" is happening now, as an attempt to make up for the level of suck and fail. The more I read and re-read TGIY, the more I was like, 'wait, what the fuck? This is **_**Connor's**_** story. He should be the one telling it. Which is why the shift from third-person to first-person happened here (also, if I'm honest, there's not enough character POV BDS fics, so I wanted to add one to the mix). Also it's going to have a LOT of the same dark elements as TGIY, and some even darker than the original, so be warned, here there be trigger warnings.**

***x*X*x* **

Eight years ago, I was a Saint.

Guess I still am, but the title that started as sensationalist bullshit in the papers and became a joke between my brother, father and I, it doesn't apply anymore, at least not to me. I'll willingly do God's work, and I'll rid this hateful fuckin' world of the filth in it, but it's a title that I _**know**_ I don't fuckin' deserve anymore.

Saints don't kill innocents. Saints don't kill the person they swore to protect from the men that hurt them, tried to _destroy _them. Saints don't kill the goddamn people they care about.

Saints don't kill the girl they _loved_.

Eight years ago, I did.

I'm not a Saint.

Not after that.

***x*X*x***

_Boston, Present Day_

I sincerely never thought we'd be back in Boston. I thought this part of our lives was done and over with, but here we are now, back again after all this fuckin' time, after _another_ fuckin' Yakavetta. I can' help but wonder if their family is as fuckin' tired of us killin' them as we are.

I just wish I could get my shit together internally, cause I'm fuckin' seein'her _everywhere_. I don' even know what the fuck my problem is, because this is usually a _lot _easier to deal with. I mean it's always there, that fuckin' soul-deep ache for somethin' I'm never fuckin' gettin' back. That's _never _gon' fuckin' go away, and to be honest, I don' want it to. But it usually just stays in the background of my mind, not front an' fuckin' center, like it has been since we headed back to Boston to finally finish these fuckers. Maybe it's a sign that it's time for me to face her too. Face what I did.

Clare. Christ, I fuckin' miss her. And I don' even have the _right_ to fuckin' miss her as much as I do, because it's my own fuckin' fault she's gone. If I hadn' fucked up the way I did that night, if I hadn' done what I did, she'd still be alive, and I wouldn' be so fucked up. It's always a fuckin' girl, innit?

But _Goddamn,_ I fuckin' loved that girl. Not that it did her any good, though.

"Connor!" Murphy's voice snaps me back into the real world, as it always does. "We're here, C'mon, don' want to keep Doc waitin'." He looks like he knows what's on my mind, or more precisely, who. I know he won' say shit though. Romeo, who I'm still not sold on as an ally yet, although, that could just be me not wantin' to risk someone else gettin' killed for our fight, is also watchin' me, lookin' puzzled.

"Right. Let's go." I grab my backpack and get out of the car, where on the sidewalk Murph is watching me like a concerned parent. Which is, well, a bit unnerving, if I'm being honest. Playing mother hen is supposed to be _my _job, dammit. I'm doin' this all fuckin' wrong.

*"An bhfuil tú ceart go leor? Tá a fhios agam nach bhfuil sé seo éasca." He asks me in Gaelic, so Romeo can't overhear. Gaelic has always been our code language since hardly anybody outside Ireland speaks it, even in South Boston, so it's perfect for subterfuge.

**" Shíl mé riamh gur mhaith linn a bheith ais anseo." I reply honestly. I can't bring myself to tell him the truth, how fuckin' hard this is bein'. This is for me to deal with anyway, though. But Murph fucking knows anyway. He saw how it all played out.

***x*X*x***

Doc's another person we didn't get to say good-bye to before we left; so to say he's thrilled to see us is an understatement. He takes a likin' to Romeo, although his Tourette's kicks in when they're introduced and Romeo initially thinks his name is Fuck-Ass, which is cleared up with a quick explanation. With a little jolt I remember the same thing happened with Clare, although she didn' think his name really was Fuck-Ass. Doc liked her too, he was devastated when he heard what happened.

Doc's set up a little base of operations for us in the back room, and it's almost like that loft Murphy and I lived in when we first moved to Boston from Ireland. Doc feeds us and gives us alcohol and we have a little celebration, even though I'm not really in the celebratin' mood. I just want to try to forget that bullshit mission and shit plan of mine, and get some goddamn sleep, which I know is probably not gon' fuckin' happen, given where my fuckin head's been at and even without the past breathin' down my neck, I don' sleep well. But however futile, I'd still like to try and make the attempt.

A few hours later, Doc shuffled off to sleep, I stretched out one of the army cots put out for us, pretty fuckin' drunk, hopin' to pass out. Rome was still drinkin' and smokin', while Murphy wandered off to look at an old bulletin board full of pictures. I watched him take one down to look at. He came and sat on the cot to my left as I sat up, curious. I wasn' fallin' asleep anyway.

***"Rinne mé dearmad ar beagnach cé chomh deas a bhí sí." He says, looking nostalgic; and a little sad too. I sit up, with some difficulty and tentatively, he hands over the picture so I can see it.

And when I see it, I understand his hesitancy. It was the last picture we'd ever taken with Clare, I don' think it was even two nights before she died. She's sitting at the bar with Murph and I, and we're laughin' at a story Greenly's tellin' out of frame. It was our "farewell" party. She's leanin' against me and I got an arm around her shoulders, while Murph's sittin' next to her goin' for a shot and laughin' his ass off. Romeo wanders over curious as to what we're lookin' at.

"Damn guys, she's cute." He says cheerfully, and I think he might be as drunk or possibly drunker than I am, plucking the picture out of my hands to get a closer look. He doesn' know about Clare, doesn' know what happened to her. This girl doesn' mean a damn thing to him. She's only a pretty girl immortalized on a square of Kodak to him, no more, no less. "Is this your girlfriend, Con?" He asks, and the question makes me flinch.

"Aye, she was my girl." I say quietly, accepting the cigarette Murph lit for me.

"Was?" Romeo asks, rubbing the back of his neck, I can tell he's feelin' a little awkward now. "You guys break up or something?"

"Actually…" I try to tell him, but my voice catches in my fuckin' throat, and Murph instinctively takes over. Eight years, and I can only count on one hand the amount of times I've said out loud she died.

"She died, not long before we went back to Ireland to lay low." Murph says, taking a drag off a cigarette and clapping me on the back, a quiet show of support.

"Fuck, Connor, I'm sorry." Rome says, holding his hands up, like he's defiled a shrine.

"S'kay, Rome. You didn' know." I reply quietly and then, for some reason, I tell him her age too. "She was eighteen."

"She was eighteen? Christ, she was young." he exhales, shaking his head and crossing himself. "That's no fuckin' age to go."

"No, it's not." I agree. He shakes his head, and leans against the pool table, lookin' at the photo again.

"Goddamn, I'm sorry dude." He says apologetically, handin' it back to me. "What was her name?" It takes me a second to get it out.

"Clare." I say, tracing the outline of her jaw with my fingertip. How many times did I do the same thing to her actual face? Murph's eyein' me like I'm a fuckin' bomb about to go off next to him. Which is completely understandable, because on the rare occasions when I bring her up, it ends either one of two ways: I either flip right the fuck out, or break down. This calm, rational Connor talkin' about Clare is completely alien and foreign to him. Maybe I'm calm because I'm just drunk; maybe I just want to give Rome a warning. Tell him it's not as simple as he thinks, it's not just catch the bad guys doin' bad things, and then kill the bad guys-the bad guys are tryin' to kill you too. And if they can' get you, they'll settle for the ones you care about.

Maybe I just want him to know what I forgot: there's no happy endin's in this line of work. Because the casualties? They feel a lot more personal on our side. For them, its only business; for us, it's a callin'. Although I could be wrong, maybe it does feel personal for them, but when they're the ones holdin' you down while they shoot yer best friend in the chest and yer hearin' stories about an underage girl bein' beaten and sold for sex, it's a _lot _fuckin' harder to feel any sympathy for them. Then again, to them, it's just two dead traitors.

Fuck what I said earlier. I can' wait to take them all the fuck down.

"How'd you even find her? Doesn't seem like it's easy to meet girls in our line of work, y'know?" Romeo asks, curious.

"It's not," Murph agreed. "Con got fuckin' lucky."

"Actually," I say, making the pair of them jump. They must have thought I wasn' payin' attention. "She found me."

And for the first time, I tell our story.

***x*X*x***

**Translations:**

***Are you okay? I know this isn't easy.**

****I never thought we'd be back here.**

*****I almost forgot how pretty she was.**

**A/N: So, here it is. Chapter One of the remaster, I'm much more pleased with this version of the story than the original, and I hope, dear readers, that you are too. Drop me a line and tell me what you think! Just to let you know updates will be very spotty, as I work during the week. **

**Also, I'm on tumblr! If you'd like to follow me and the story there, here's the link! **

** blackjackandcokewriting. tumblr .com (just remove the spaces)  
**

**Speaking of tumblr, I want to give a shout-out to fellow Tumblr Saint (long story) and follower, whycantidoanythingright, for beta-ing this chapter. This one goes out to you, love. For being my beta and putting up with my bullshit, I love you. :3**


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